Chapter 50
They didn’t just have to watch out for the patients swarming in from outside. The sound of a nurse sprinting up from outside the ward was already raging like mad. If they just stood still, they’d be surrounded in no time.
However, Ian didn’t pay them much mind. Park Heesu, with a shotgun bandolier over his shoulder and a cigarette in his mouth, had already started striding forward.
“All right, that nun and I will break the way open! Mage, prep a spell strong enough to put this hospital out of commission!”
Park Heesu shouted as he shouldered the shotgun in a textbook stance, and Ian gave a snort of laughter.
“What, do you think this world is Dungeons & Dragons? I can’t just use fire and lightning like some student at an academy.”
“Huh? The mage I saw was setting people on fire by force and all kinds of nonsense.”
“……What kind of mage was that supposed to be?”
“The Human Spontaneous Combustion Incident, you know that? We got a report that some crazy bastard was using magic in the middle of the city, so we moved in to suppress him, and the Administration agents on the scene all burned to death. You don’t know about the case where he then stormed the Administration building and killed every office worker there?”
Even hearing that, the incident sounded absurd. He’d seen the Human Spontaneous Combustion Incident mentioned on the community boards, but he never imagined there had been such a backstory.
‘If he was a mage capable of forcibly igniting a person... the price must be beyond imagination.’
Magic isn’t an all-powerful force. It can perform miracles, but the price required to work them is inevitable. Naturally, the more powerful the spell, the greater the cost, and how quickly a mage can prepare and use it determines their level.
By that measure, the mage who’d used a spell strong enough to burn a person to death in an instant had clearly been exceptionally skilled. He didn’t know what price had been paid, but anyone who could kill Administration agents that fast was surely a master.
Now that they were dead, there was no way to ask. Still, his interest had been piqued. Ian vowed to look up information on the guy once he got out and switched grimoires.
Fwoosh.
A pure white grimoire appeared in his hand.
Naturally, it wouldn’t be good if anyone found out he had two grimoires, so he immediately hid Hand of Recreation in his inside coat pocket. Then he approached the lying patients and activated the magic of Recreation.
“Be reborn.”
Crunch!
The convulsing patients were compressed into meatballs on the spot. The slick feel was unpleasant, but he figured it was better to secure the materials, so he stuffed them all into his bag.
He had to do what he had to do.
“......”
Seeing Ian casually manhandle the patients, Cecilia’s eyes briefly widened, but she turned at the sound of the ward door being flung open. Park Heesu grinned as he stared at the nurse’s face pushing in.
“Hey, miss!”
“Patient! You mustn’t move—”
“Thanks for taking care of me all this time!”
Click!
Park Heesu hooked a finger through the trigger and curved his eyes into crescents.
“This is my love!”
Blaaang!!
The lead pellets blasted out, crushing the heads of the charging nurses and slamming them into the walls. Blood pooled and sprayed across Ian and Cecilia’s faces.
“......”
Its power was on a completely different level from an ordinary shotgun. The firepower was so intense you’d believe it was firing cannon shells rather than shot. It was probably something the Administration had personally modified.
“Hahaha! Let’s go!”
Park Heesu shouted as he stomped on the nurses reduced to lumps of meat. Ian gave a bitter smile, gathered up as many of the fallen nurses as he could, and moved after him. Cecilia overtook Ian and ran up beside Park Heesu, who was charging in front.
“I’ll take the left. You take the right.”
“Oh, nice! I really like orders like that!”
Park Heesu grinned, aimed the muzzle at the right corner, and pulled the trigger without hesitation. Cecilia, without a shred of playfulness, willingly offered up her left arm to the aberration bursting out from the left and drove her dagger into its eye, tearing through its brain.
Craaack!!
With an awful sound, the aberration’s body went limp. Cecilia immediately left her severed arm as it was, climbed onto the fallen aberration, and fired at the ones pressing in.
Ratatatat!
The muzzle spat fire in rapid succession, pouring out bullets. At that moment, familiar footsteps came from the far end of the corridor.
“Found an amputation case.”
It was a surgeon.
He fluttered his pure white coat and fixed his gaze squarely on Cecilia, drooling from the corner of his mouth.
“Commence surgery.”
Shing.
He pulled the scalpel from his pocket and let his long tongue hang out. Cecilia watched him, frowned at the sudden bout of madness, and jammed her dagger into her own throat.
“Hurk!”
Blood and phlegm gurgled up in her mouth. Her breathing stopped for an instant, and blood gushed from the punctured carotid artery. It felt as if her whole body were turning deathly pale and cold.
That brought her mind back to full alertness. Cecilia pulled the dagger out, clamped it between her teeth, and prayed while gripping the rosary in her hand.
At the same time, all her wounds healed. She took the dagger back in hand and spat out the blood pooling in her mouth.
“My only physician is the Lord, you things that crawled up from evil. Don’t even think of laying a hand on my body.”
Cecilia roughly wiped the blood from her mouth, threw her dagger, and took a pistol in each hand.
“He is gracious yet not merciful, granting salvation yet not granting salvation—how dare you call that the will of God? I am His proxy and His servant, and I shall purify evil and proclaim His will to the world.”
Fluent Italian poured from her as she crossed her pistols and fired. On the right came the thunderous blast of a shotgun, and on the left, the sound of something being chewed apart and a relentless stream of gunfire. Under their escort, Ian looked back.
‘They’re swarming in.’
It was good that the two of them were opening the way as the vanguard, but looking at them, they didn’t seem to have the spare capacity to cover the rear too.
Nothing for it. Ian gripped his revolver and calmly blew the heads off the ones pressing forward.
BANG! Click, bang!
The cylinder spun as the muzzle flashed. Six rounds were spent just like that. Instead of reloading, he put the revolver back in its holster without hesitation and placed a hand on the wall.
“Be reborn.”
Crunch!
The wall stretched out lengthwise, completely blocking off the rear corridor. With that, their rear was secured, but retreat was impossible too.
Since he hadn’t planned to retreat in the first place, it didn’t matter. Ian rubbed his raw throat and opened the Chronicle of the Deep Sea. Inside the grimoire, opened with a burst of blood mist, he searched for the best summon to use in the current situation.
He didn’t need to worry about feeding it. This hospital had a whopping sixty-six floors. Even if he only searched one floor, he wouldn’t be starving, so he ignored the cost and chose only something suitably strong.
‘This’ll do.’
Having made his decision, he sat down in the middle of the corridor and began drawing a magic circle. Realizing Ian was about to do something serious, Park Heesu and Cecilia ran to his side.
“A big one-shot? You going for a big one-shot?!”
“Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
A thick scent of blood wafted from both of them. Cecilia was soaked through and couldn’t even tell the aberration’s blood from her own, and Park Heesu didn’t look much better. Given that his shoulder blade was fully exposed, it looked like he’d been bitten clean through.
Even though these were aberrations that could be dealt with by brute force, overwhelming them with numbers made them troublesome. It was impossible for a recon team, much less a response team, to deal with them perfectly using only shotguns.
Cecilia was in the better shape for now, but in terms of injuries, she was far worse off. She looked fine right now, but without her regeneration, she would have already died long ago.
But she hadn’t died, so there was no problem.
Unfazed by the two of them urging him on, Ian carefully completed the magic circle, placed no fewer than seven pieces of the aberration’s flesh he’d brought onto it, and chanted the spell. He didn’t forget to mix in his own blood.
“You, eye of the Great One, watcher, and lighthouse. I, His proxy and companion, command you: reveal yourself here and become my eye and harpoon.”
The moment the incantation ended, blood mist spread through the corridor. The mist carried the smell of iron mixed with the sea’s unique fishy stench. Cecilia and Park Heesu flinched with indescribable fear, and Ian slowly turned his head toward the gaze he felt from the window side.
Then their eyes met.
[……]
A gigantic pupil. Nothing else could be seen. Only his own figure was clearly reflected in the crimson eye.
Commonly known as the "Watcher".
A giant jellyfish-like creature, a predator of the outer sea with a single enormous eye.
It looked at Ian. Ian looked back at it.
An inexplicable exchange of glances passed between the two.
And at that moment, the Watcher’s eye cracked slightly, revealing a faint silhouette of someone.
[……heh.]
It was a girl.
The color of her hair or her features couldn’t be made out. But it was unmistakably a girl’s face. Blood-red eyes bloomed within the Watcher’s pupil, and the curved corners of her eyes drew a smile as they flowed down like liquid.
“……Uwegh!”
“Hngh, ahh…… Almighty Father, please protect us…… nghh……!”
With the girl’s appearance, Park Heesu and Cecilia started convulsing, shaking all over. The aberrations also stiffened as if bound by something, and even the surgeon who’d been approaching so boldly trembled all over, scalpel in hand.
Only Ian remained unharmed.
[……ahaha.]
The girl stared at him with a sticky, lustful gaze and laughed in a faint voice. That sound rang only inside Ian’s mind.
A moment later, the girl’s figure vanished from the Watcher’s eye. The cracked pupil returned to normal, and the blood-red iris reflected only Ian’s figure.
“……Kkh, kahk! W-what the hell was that just now, you fucking...!”
Park Heesu glared at Ian and fumbled around. Just as Ian was about to answer him, long tentacles pierced through the hospital’s outer wall. The tentacles gently caressed Ian, then shot toward the aberrations, piercing and crushing them.
“This is...?!”
The surgeon was flustered by the writhing tentacles. He hacked at them with the scalpel and shouted into the air.
“Great One! We absolutely had no such intention—”
Crunch!
A mass of tentacles dropped from the ceiling and crushed his body into dozens of pieces. Blood dripped down, and the maws at the ends of the tentacles drooled as they searched for their next meal.
“......Fuck. What the hell is this.”
Park Heesu muttered with a shell-shocked expression. Cecilia regenerated her tongue, which had been cut halfway off, as she came to her senses, then kicked Park Heesu with her foot.
“Snap out of it! Move!”
“If you can summon something like that, are you even human anymore...?”
“The Administration!”
“I hear you, you fucking Jesus freak bitch! Fine, let’s move! Emergency exit! We’re heading for the emergency exit!”
Park Heesu spat a curse and ran with the shotgun in hand. Cecilia followed behind him and looked back at Ian.
“Mage!”
“......I’m coming.”
Ian moved after them, feeling the Watcher’s gaze on him.
Wriggling tentacles brought down the hospital’s ceiling and walls, devouring not only the aberrations on every floor but the patients as well.
Crimson blood began to soak the hospital interior.
*
An abandoned hospital in Incheon. In front of the building marked Johan General Hospital, the members of Response Team 3 quickly checked their equipment and condition, then placed a hand on the hospital entrance.
“We’re going in. Remember this: inside, you must never get injured, and you must never eat anything. And the moment we step inside, we’re not Administration agents anymore—we’re brothers and sisters.”
“Understood.”
At Kim Iseo’s answer, Yeoul nodded and opened the hospital entrance. Then they slowly began to move inside. The five-person team entered the hospital lobby with Yeoul leading the way.
With every step they took, the scenery changed. The trees and grass spread out behind them began to vanish, revealing a blood-red sky and an empty lot.
The hospital interior, which had been empty and not even maintained, transformed into a spotless space. At the same time, they caught sight of tentacles with nurses impaled on them, rampaging all around.
“Ah?”
The moment they witnessed that scene, their minds went blank for a second.
Tentacles roaming around with nurses stuck on them? That hadn’t been in the report.
The moment everyone thought that, the patients at the entrance they’d come through started surging in like crazy.
There was no time to react. In an instant, they were swept along like a wave, flailing with bewildered faces amid the patients.
“Wh-what is thisss!!”
“Stay calm and respond! It’s a sudden emergency! If you lose your head, you’ll die on the spot!”
“Minah! Look after the youngest!”
“Y-yes...!”
“Fuck...!”
At the same time, the agents who’d shown different reactions finally drew their weapons.
KWAAAANG!!
Suddenly, the emergency exit door flew open and a patient engulfed in flames burst out.
“Heeelp meee!! Save meee!!”
CRACK!
The bundles of tentacles that poured out of the emergency exit after him swallowed him whole. Though something could be heard bursting inside the tentacles, they paid it no mind and wriggled on, searching for their next target.
Behind those tentacles, Ian’s group emerged.
Park Minah, who had been flailing around after being swept along by the patients, recognized Park Heesu’s face and shouted loudly.
“Oppa!”
“......Uh! Minah?!”
Park Heesu.
The target of Team 3’s agents and the only survivor in this hospital. At the sound of his voice, the agents’ gazes all turned, and they also spotted the two people beside him. Kim Iseo, with her hat pulled low, recognized Ian’s face and muttered softly.
“......The convenience store clerk?”